Sustainable spread

Thursday

Architect and carpenter Todd Miller admits that he could afford to make his own house such a deep shade of green only because he had the time and skill to do virtually everything himself.

Plenty of eco-sensitive people would love to maximize earth-friendly, sustainably sourced and energy-efficient designs and materials when building a home, but are thwarted, at least to a degree, by the price and labor premiums that still accompany much green construction.

For Miller, neither time nor cost proved prohibitive in his efforts to handcraft a 2,100-square-foot home outside Cottage Grove that has served as something of a laboratory for his green-building experiments.

As an architect who focuses on natural and environmentally conscious design — including straw-bale homes, small cottages and passive efficiency measures to limit supplemental heating and cooling needs — Miller says he used his own homebuilding project to refine his design process and ultimately make green building a more affordable option for potential clients.

“I wanted to do samples of different kinds of green approaches,” Miller says, “and I got to put my training into practice by actually doing it all myself on this house.”

Tapped into available resources

By placing his home at the north end of a meadow opposite a pond, Miller has a natural source of heating. The southern exposure allowed by the meadow not only bathes the home with maximum solar radiation when it is most needed, but creates open views onto the 20-acre property ringed by forest.

South- and east-facing covered porches invite solar gain when the winter sun is low in the sky — but provide welcome shade in summer. The porches also offer a vista onto a future garden site and mini-orchard of plum, pear and apple trees, and bioswales that carry rooftop runoff away from the house.

“Part of what I do as an architect as well is look at the environment and how it affects the site design and site planning for a house,” Miller says, “and utilizing permaculture principles ... stacking functions, such as using rainwater harvesting and designing and specifying metal roofs that have clean water runoff.”

Runoff from his baked enamel-coated roofing collects in a small retention pond, creating a water source for garden bed irrigation and potentially for future aquatic gardening.

Built for energy efficiency

Beyond its carefully thought-out site design, Miller’s home is built on a foundation of energy efficiency.

For one, the 51/2-inch concrete slab that serves as the main-level floor forms a substantial mass to insulate the home against temperature swings. It sits atop 21/2 inches of rigid insulation board and, below that, 85 tons of crushed rock. “This foundation is the saving grace to the house because there’s so much thermal mass in the ground,” Miller says.

The floor includes piping for radiant heating, but Miller says he rarely uses the supplemental heat source because the central wood stove warms the home so efficiently.

Sitting at the heart of the vaulted living room, the stove’s pipe rises 22 feet to the ceiling, radiating heat along its length. Fueling the stove with abundant wood from the property, Miller says he can effectively heat the entire home with ceiling fans circulating the warmth.

So far this winter, Miller says his average monthly electrical bill has been less than $60, which includes use of all appliances, the well pump house and electric water heater. For a potentially even more energy-efficient future, he installed all the necessary piping to accommodate gas appliances, active solar systems, an external wood boiler, tankless water heaters and more.

“I’m living with minimal energy needs, and I can’t think of another technology, besides wood, that would really improve my situation much,” Miller admits. “But all those options are there for me or a future owner.”

Cleaner, greener materials

Rounding out the home’s green identity are a palette of natural, reclaimed and sustainable materials — starting with the rich woods throughout the interior. The exposed beams and posts of the hybrid timber frame are made from Douglas fir, cut and milled within 300-400 feet of the building site.

“There’s a meadow up above that I cleared out to give more light to the native oaks because all these Doug fir were taking over,” Miller says.

Much of the trim comes from locally harvested or salvaged fir, too, while the double-paned wood windows are cased in Sustainable Forest Initiative (SFI)-certified pine.

“It was an extra $3,000 to get unsustainably harvested fir” for the windows, Miller says. “Or, do you go with the sustainably harvested pine and then try to match it? I went ahead with that option, but I had to stain everything to match.”

Speaking of stains and finishes, Miller opted for products with minimal or no volatile organic compounds (VOCs) wherever possible, including OSMO hard-wax finishes on the fir and hemlock floors upstairs.

He also installed Paperstone counters, made from all-recycled material, in part of the kitchen. The chocolate-colored surface is treated every two or three months with food-grade oil.

And the rusty hues swirling across the main level’s concrete floor result from an application of natural ferrous sulfate (iron) and coffee grounds — a nontoxic, artistic alternative to commercial concrete stains.

“There are very few VOCs in the house,” he says. “I used fasteners where I could instead of glues, and if I did use glues I used no- to low-VOC glues.”

Staying close to home

Miller, whose previous addresses have included a yurt and a Volkswagen, says he is unaccustomed to living in such luxury. But he enjoys using his house to show what is possible in green construction. He also operates Oregon Cottage Company — building mobile bungalows for use as offices, studios, guest rooms or even tiny homes — in his adjacent shop.

But Miller admits the house is too big for just him and says that changes in his personal life could result in a move. Should that time come, he hopes that future occupants will honor the property’s green pedigree.

“The number one detriment of living out rurally, ecologically speaking, is that most people have to commute in,” he says. “If you get in your car and go 45 minutes to Eugene, all that energy and time invested in building a beautiful ecological home is for naught. That’s the reason why I’m trying to do a homespun business and keeping my work here.”

To learn more about Miller’s home, visit www.toddmillerarchitecture.com/projects.html; click “Tour the Miller Residence” to view a short video.

Staff writer Joel Gorthy can be contacted at sp.feedback@registerguard.com.

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